


Nick and Zeg Go Home

by faeleverte



Series: Male Order Verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asexual Character, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Genderqueer Character, Other, old spies in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4432535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeleverte/pseuds/faeleverte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "deleted" scene set in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1857444/chapters/9642336/">Chapter 20</a> of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1857444/chapters/3996936/">Male Order Bride</a>.</p><p>After 28 years of a secret relationship, separated by at <i>least</i> one ocean, rarely finding time to be together, Director of SHIELD Nick Fury and the unaligned spymaster and assassin Waarzegster have finally made their way to the same continent, city, apartment, and room. </p><p>As soon as they have cleared away the cobwebs of a 25 year old fight, they might even be able to find their way to a shared life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nick and Zeg Go Home

**Author's Note:**

> _This is just a love story, dedicated to all of you who love Zeg and Nick and Nick-and-Zeg as much as I do. You all give me a reason to keep writing when it's hard. ILU all!_

“Where _have_ you brought us, love?” Zeg allowed themself the weakness of leaning into Nick’s arm just a little more firmly. No one was there to see but Nick, and he was and had always been the only safe place to show weakness.

The endless stairs had been a bit more than their ankle felt up to just yet, even when Nick had swooped them off their feet to carry them up the final two flights. Their climb had been accompanied by Nick’s endless encouragement and apologies, and it was punctuated by a stop at the elevator bay on the top floor to get biometric readings from Zeg so that they would be able to ride in the elevator going forward. It was flattering to know that Nick respected their privacy enough to have kept from saving Zeg’s particulars over all the years they’d known one another. 

Zeg made a mental note to incinerate a certain blood sample that had spent the past twenty-two years in their vault as soon as they were back in Europe for any length of time. 

“Welcome home, baby.” Nick finished with the lock on the door and swung it open. He turned back to Zeg with a playful smile before reaching out to swing them into his arms. “Gotta stick with tradition, right?”

“You haven’t married us yet, Nicholas,” Zeg told him dryly, but they melted into his embrace, looping their arms around his neck and kissing the shining skin of his smooth scalp. “But we suppose the triumphant symbolism probably still applies.”

Nick laughed as he edged through the door, trying to be gentle as he fit the two of them through a space designed to only admit one. 

Zeg looked around curiously as Nick lowered their feet to the plush rug that spread across the polished stone of the entry floor. The vaulted ceiling of the foyer curved down to an arch that opened into a large living space beyond. They’d seen these walls through video calls, but they’d never been in the room before, and they hobbled immediately toward an expensively-worn leather couch that waited in front of a large gas fireplace. Glass made up most of the wall across from them, and the lights of New York spread around them, cars so far below that they looked like ants with headlamps on as they rushed past.

“Dear God, this _view_ , Nicholas!” Zeg leaned their chin on the arm of the couch as they curled up, ignoring the throbbing behind the still-healing incision on their hip. “Why have you never brought us here before?”

“Because I didn’t buy the building until _after_ you’d collected Basil.” The couch creaked as Nick sat down behind them. Zeg sighed, letting their eyes slip half-closed when his big hands spread across their shoulders, tension fading away before he began massaging. “I’ve wanted you here for years.” He paused, and his fingers quit squeezing. “Bought it for you.”

Zeg turned stiffly toward him, curling into his side, his arm looped around their shoulders. 

“Then why didn’t you ask me sooner, my love?”

*****

Nick shuffled uncomfortably under Zeg’s sharp blue gaze. Time had finally come for the discussion they’d both been putting off for a solid twenty years. Time and past.

“Wasn’t sure how you’d take it,” he said softly, reaching out with his free hand to run his thumb along the pale column of their throat. “Not after I…With what I did last time I asked you to move in with me.”

Zeg blinked and looked away quickly. They weren’t fast enough for Nick to miss the sudden wetness of their brilliant eyes, however. 

“We…” Zeg sighed. “I wondered if you remembered that. But Nick, it was so long ago. You were young--”

“No.” Nick cut them off sharply. He swallowed hard and carefully caught Zeg’s chin to make them look at him. Zeg’s eyes were wide and warm, wet with tears, and so understanding they caught the breath in Nick’s throat.

“I wish I could say I was young and stupid, but I wasn’t that young. And I was so much dumber than just stupid,” he told them quietly, and they sighed and bit their lip. “Saying I’m sorry doesn’t cut it, baby I know it doesn’t. But I _am_ sorry. I never should have asked you for that, and I never should have walked out when you-- rightly-- told me to get over myself.”

Zeg sucked in a deep breath and their eyes widened further, knocking loose a tear that trailed down their cheek, glittering in the low lamplight of the room. They looked down to where the fingers of their left hand toyed with the edge of the cast on their right, Nick’s gaze following of the path of theirs.

“At the time,” they said, voice low and shaky, “it felt as if you were asking me to put away half of myself for you. As if you were ashamed of half of who I am.” They looked up, and their eyes were hot with something like triumph. “But it was the catalyst for me to figure out that _dressing like a man_ or _dressing like a woman_ had nothing to do with who I am. You asked me to give up my _entire_ self, Nick. My gender expression is not tied to my clothing. This is who I am. This is who _we_ are, Nicholas. We wish we’d been able to express that to you better, way back then.”

Nick nodded slowly and licked his lips, pinned by the intensity of their gaze. He licked his lips again, hit by the realization of how beautiful he found them this way, glowing and alive and convinced of their own righteousness. Come to think of it, that was the same look he’d seen them wearing the first time they’d met at the center of an exploding AIM compound, bodies littering the floor between the two of them. And then Zeg, dressed in a their red, woolen robe with their naturally blonde hair flying around their face, had eyed him up and back down and smiled slowly and wickedly, and Nick had _known_ he’d be in for one helluva ride. 

Then again, if he’d been a Fortune Teller himself, he’d have just declared his undying love that first moment and saved them both three years of innuendo and sarcasm.

“Yeah, I thought that loving you, finding you just as appealing, when you were wearing male clothing meant I was gay. Never mind that I clearly loved you just as much in a dress.” _Or wearing nothing at all_ , he didn’t say. He cleared his throat against a sudden dryness and continued. “I thought I was straight, and I thought that any appearance of possibly being _not_ straight would… would make me less, somehow, to other people. And don’t forget that I hadn’t ever actually _wanted_ anyone before. Not really. You were a helluva shock, all the way around.”

“And it frightened you. _We_ frightened you.” Zeg caught the next tear with one fingertip and turned their hand to watch it glitter in the lamplight. “We knew that, love. And we decided to wait you out. But life got busy for both of us then.” 

Nick huffed a semi-laugh of agreement and pulled them closer with the arm around their shoulders, rubbing his cheek against the silk of their blue-black hair. _Busy_. Such a short word for how chaotic their lives had become when Zeg decided to start their own network of spies and assassins, loyal to nothing and no one but them. And then Nick had been offered the Assistant Directorship of SHIELD, and all Hell _really_ broke loose.

“It took me too long to figure out that you’re not partially male and partially female. And it took me even longer to figure out that I didn’t _actually_ give a damn about gender or whatever.” Nick chuckled bitterly. “I’m sorry. I should have… I should have known that I love _you_ , and that you are Zeg and that’s all that matters.”

Zeg tried to inhale, but the air caught in a small sob. The tears had begun to stream unchecked down their face, midway through Nick’s speech, and they flung themself into his chest, crying hard and clinging. Their cast dug painfully into Nick’s lower back, but he couldn’t be arsed to care.

Somehow, somewhere in that sudden spew of words, he’d managed to say the right thing.

“I love you, Nicholas. I love you. I love you, I love you.” Zeg pushed away just far enough to press their lips against his. “I love you, you fucking moron,” they whispered against his mouth before turning the brush of lips against lips into a real kiss, tongue and teeth taking and demanding and devouring. 

Several long, breathless minutes later, Nick pulled away with a shiver. 

“Baby, the first time I fuck you here, in our home, is _not_ going to be a hurried rush on the goddamned _sofa_.” He reluctantly pulled himself out of Zeg’s slender, far-too-strong arms and rolled to his feet. “I’m too old and you’re too injured for that shit. Bring your pert little ass this way and let me show you our bed.”

*****

Zeg leaned gratefully on Nick’s arm as he led them down a short hallway. Nick showed them the half-bath and then his crowded, paper-strewn office with the exaggerated flair of a tour guide.

“I own the whole building, and it’s mostly empty,” Nick told them, looping his arm around their waist when he noticed them hobbling without their cane. “There are a few offices and apartments on other floors that haven’t been set up as traps or storage, and you can pick one for your space. We’ll do _that part_ of the tour when you’re walking better.”

“May we install Basil in one?” Zeg drew away and crossed their arms over their chest. “Only we _need_ him, Nick. Not having him around is more inconvenient than this damned cast.”

“You saying I’m not enough man for you, baby?” Nick drawled, low and teasing. He chuckled when Zeg rolled their eyes at him, pulling them back to his side and gently shunting them further down the hall. “I’d never ask you to get along without your faithful sidekick. You can either pick him out a place or let him choose when he gets here.”

“Thank y--” Zeg stopped speaking mid-word as Nick pushed open the door to the bedroom. They’d _seen_ Nick’s bedroom before, over his shoulder on the computer and in pictures. 

The room beyond the door looked _nothing_ like Nick’s bedroom.

Nick's utilitarian furniture had been replaced by large, opulent, carved-wooden pieces, the stark blues and black of the bed linens by rich red and gold brocade. A pair of winged armchairs in the corner cuddled together around a large ottoman, the whole seating area framed by lamps for companionable reading of a night. The wall-of-windows theme continued in this room, framed here by heavy curtains trimmed in gold cord, pulled back to display the beauty of the city at night. Zeg's luggage had been brought up by some of Nick’s usual slight-of-hand magic and stacked neatly in one corner of the room.

"I had a decorator in when you agreed to come." Nick stuffed both hands deep in the pockets of his slacks and shuffled his feet nervously. "Showed her a couple pictures of you, and this is what she came up with. Do you like it? I mean, we can change it again, if you wanna. Just didn't want it too... I wanted to bring you to a bedroom I could see you in. Wanted a bed worth sharing."

Zeg turned slowly toward Nick, leaning in until they were pressed together from their chests to their thighs.

“It’s beautiful, love,” they said, and they smiled at the throatiness in their own voice. “That you did this for us, it’s just--” Running out of words, they tilted forward the last inch and stopped themself from speaking by pressing their lips to his.

Nick sighed, shoulders suddenly sloping with the release of tension, and he looped his arms around their waist, pulling them tightly to him as he deepened the kiss. 

*****

The journey from the doorway to the bed had taken far longer than a dozen steps should have dictated, but Nick had wanted to take his time, tracing the perfect edge of Zeg’s narrow lips with his own mouth, scraping his beard and moustache along the thin skin of their pale throat just to hear them gasp. 

When they’d covered the first quarter of the trip, Nick found he’d lost his jacket and the thin cotton shirt he wore beneath it. Zeg’s blouse hung from their wrists, unbuttoned and floating around them, exposing the flat plains of their chest and the ridges of their sharp ribs. By the halfway point, Zeg no longer wore any clothing, leaving them bare and beautiful except for the cast on their wrist and the heavily velcroed boot on their broken ankle. Reaching the three-quarters mark of the short path, Nick’s undershirt had been yanked off and flung aside, and his belt had come undone under the insistent fumbling of Zeg’s fingers, and their hands had slid down to squeeze bruises into his ass. 

Finally, however, they both had reached the bed, and Nick finally had Zeg’s beautiful body spread over the comforter, as real as he’d imagined and twice as perfect. 

“Jesus, look at you, baby,” Nick crooned as he leaned down to press his lips against their breastbone. “I can’t believe you’re here. Fuck, I have been waiting for this. Thought I was gonna have to wait forever. Never thought--” His throat closed suddenly, and his eyes felt strangely hot. 

“Oh, Nicholas,” Zeg whispered, reaching for him with both arms and their one good leg. “Love, we two have been heading for this moment since our paths first crossed. We suspect that we’ve been on this collision course since the world began spinning. How could we not have made it to this moment? The stars themselves would have moved to make it happen.”

“What I get for bedding the Fortune Teller,” Nick murmured with a grin before biting their nipple. 

Zeg shivered under him, pulling him more tightly to them, and Nick sank into their embrace, shifting to the side to keep from putting pressure on the angry red welt of the still-healing bullet wound in their hip. They pulled his face to their chest, long fingers stroking lightly over his scalp for a moment before they dug their fingertips in and began to massage. 

“We have held up the world between us, love.” Zeg shuffled slightly until they could kiss his temple, and the slide of their bare skin against his chest hair sent waves of warmth through his stomach. “We two have endured separation and longing, loved when it seemed we both were lost to each other. We two have stayed faithful, and we have overcome distance and time and constant threats of death.”

“Easy enough to stay faithful when no one else gets my dick hard,” Nick muttered, and Zeg lightly slapped his shoulder with a quelling look and a purse-lipped glare. He laughed and kissed the faux-irritation away. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nicholas.” Zeg said when he pulled back to let them breathe. “We know even _we_ don’t generally have such an effect on you. It is sweet of you to say so, however.”

Nick laughed again and kissed the thin skin over one sharp edge of their collarbone, making them sigh and shiver.

“When you asked us to be a woman for you, we considered it.” Zeg said, voice calm and matter-of-fact, and Nick shoved himself up to his elbows in order to clearly meet their eyes. There, in their steady blue gaze, he found nothing but forgiveness and understanding. He sighed in relief and kissed them quickly before pulling away to let them continue. “If there had been any way for me to survive like that, I would have. For you, Nick, I wished I could try. And that was half my anger. That even for _you_ , I just… I couldn’t. I always wondered how stupid I had been not to at least try. But you came back to us, and you loved us just the same. And now…” They trailed off and smiled at him, slow and easy.

“So you forgive me for my stupidity?” Nick asked, and Zeg nodded, lips still curled in that same warm smile. “Then I can forgive you for not being smart enough back then to dump my dumb ass and find someone worthy of you.”

“There is no one _more_ worthy, Nick.” Zeg’s soft smile turned impish. “At least, now that you’ve finally grown up.”

“Hey!” Nick grinned down at them as they slipped the eyepatch off of his face, dropping it over the side of the bed, and rubbed at the line it always left around his head. 

“Now, get down here and make good on all those promises you gave us before our ship sailed.” Zeg arched against him, rubbing themself against his stomach. “We _believe_ you offered to demonstrate that your mouth was good for more than barking orders, yes?”

He slid one hand under their lower back, pulling them up as he leaned down to growl into their ear. “My mouth is always at your service, baby.”

And then he set about removing most of Zeg’s verbal skills and all of their composure.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I didn't wait for my betas this time, so if you see something remarkably out of place, please let me know. Some days are like that!


End file.
